Truth in fiction

Jeff Wilson · 08 Jan 2011, 06:15 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:15:24 -0600
Subject: (urth) Truth in fiction
In-Reply-To: <957545.4527.qm at web37605.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <SNT123-W22C4EBA2DF177241AFB77DCF0B0 at phx.gbl>	<4D27B429.90500 at io.com>
	<957545.4527.qm at web37605.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4D2800FC.20608 at io.com>

On 1/7/2011 7:14 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
>> I would be interested to know if you've read Margaret Atwood's "Death by
>> Landscape"? It seems to be
>> to be a deliberately answerless and  unanswerable mystery story, for or by
>> anyone.
>
> I've taught that story before precisely to teach the value of ambiguity. Works
> well, actually. And anyone remember "The Lady and the Tiger"? I used to teach
> that to high school freshmen. It drove them absolutely nuts, which was awesome.

Not really what I meant. There are presented two firm answers, the 
mechanism that determines which one is discussed, and we are left by 
Stockton to meditate on the lover's decision; this is a reasonable 
ambiguity, all in the mystery of the human heart, and the reader can 
envision either outcome.

Atwood methodically considers and demolishes all the plausible 
explanations, sifting out most of the ambiguity of the girls' emotional 
lives and sowing it into the physical world with a seed broadcaster 
where it takes root in the vicissitudes of weather, the lake current, 
predators, etc. and lets it ramble for decades unharvested. The reader 
is left with the non-solution of the surviving girl dying of old age 
among her collection still unable to get traction on her friend's 
traceless disappearance.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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